Michael Traynor

From gentle flights by balloon to high-speed, adrenaline-packed air races, the women in these two volumes did it all. They competed in flying competitions throughout Europe, Africa and America. They grabbed newspaper headlines when they completed long-distance solo endurance flights. They established world records in other aviation spheres.` They were honoured with titles. Their backgrounds ranged from poverty to aristocracy but they associated and mingled with royals, nobles and socialites in the aviation heyday of the 1920s and 1930s. Sadly, however, history has largely forgotten these women. These two volumes give them their rightful place among Irish achievers of the early twentieth century.

The two volumes contain the biographies of over a dozen Irish­women who were at the cutting edge of the aeronautical revolu­tion that swept these islands in the early twentieth century. Their stories are told against the backdrop of Irish economic, social and political life. Some enjoyed a lavish and aristocratic lifestyle, while others struggled to support themselves. They hailed from the four provinces of Ireland.